SketchUp Talk: A New SketchUp Forum in Town

Whenever anyone starts to do any work, he needs a proper guidance. And in these days the online forums are the places where everyone can get the right direction to reach their destinations. The online forum is the most happening place in recent time where people get along with like minded people, share their ideas and viewpoint, get suggestions and can build back links. SketchUp ur Space brings to you a similar place for all the SketchUp lover of this world and the place is called SketchUp Talk.

It is a new forum for SketchUp, the 3D designing tool from the house of Google. The visitors can be a part of this SketchUp Forum by following up some simple steps. After completing the registration, the users can start posting, viewing other’s post and suggesting the solution of the other’s problem. There are lots of moderators who are the proficient in this field to guide the users. The SketchUp Talk is the right place for all the SketchUp users to start their journey as a 3D artist.

There are twelve different SketchUp threads in the forum. They are:

v     Discussion Board of SketchUp

v     Showcase your SketchUp Work

v     Plug-ins and Components

v     SketchUp in Different Genre

v     SketchUp Developer’s Place

v     Add Ons of SketchUp

v     SketchUp Challenge

v     News and Happening

v     Make a Wish for SketchUp

v     SketchUp Tutorials

v     SketchUp Tips and Tricks

v     SketchUp Bugs

 In these threads you get guidance, information, news and many more things. You can learn many tricks from the Tutorials posted here. In the thread SketchUp in Different Genre you can know that how SketchUp has been used in different categories like architecture, woodworking and many others. Many interesting features are also there. In the thread Showcase Your SketchUp Work, users can post their SketchUp work to show their skill. SketchUp Talk also arranges a monthly challenge of SketchUp work under the title SketchUp Challenge.

So don’t waste your time. Go and register your name in SketchUp Talk to get the unique username here: http://forum.sketchup4architect.com

Getting insight of smaller interior space through Google SketchUp

If you are using SketchUp and modeling a small room, it could be very difficult to see inside of the room because the wall & ceiling will get in the way of your vision. There is one solution to remove the ceiling and work in top view, dollhouse-style. Another thing is set up scene from the interior corners and adjust its field of view to super-wide like 90^0.

Difficult to render the insight view 

Removed ceiling and switching to top view

Corner view gives very wide scene

The both above technique work at certain point. Its like reading a book from a small keyhole. So exploring the SketchUp abilities for small interior to have faces with different materials on each side.

Face separating girl and boy is green and yellow on the each side

Creating a complete transparent material and painting the green side

The dialog box shows the selected face is yellow on the front and see-through on the back

By painting the outside wall with a see through material, one can see in from the outside. Quite simple.

Outside-facing surface with a transparent material

Revolving around the model, render through all the walls and floor

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Trash can V-ray 1.5 materials-3D model

Short summary: 

Trash Can V-ray 1.5 Materials 3D Model

Geometry- Polygonal

Polygons-  2520

vertices-    2550

Texture-    yes

Material-   yes

Animated- No

Joint-        No

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What's new in Google SketchUp 8?

Google SketchUp has been releasing its series and new SketchUp 8 released on 1^st Jan 2011 has fixed out the issues pertained in previous version.

Check out the overview of issues that have been solved:

Shadow:

1. The Shadow bug has been fixed.
2. The “shadow strings” bug has been fixed too. Earlier shadows could show string like artifacts.

Image Export:

1. PC user only would be able to export images at a higher resolution though the capability depends upon the Computer environment but now consistent between Mac and windows system
2. One more issue has solved which is when exporting images with the camera.aspect_ratio set to a non-default value, block-like artifacts could be seen in the exported images.

Push Pull and Follow me:

1.  Now the Follow me cursor is correctly shown when using the Follow me tool with pre selected item and also correctly shown when activating the Follow me tool via a keyboard.
2. The Context menu items are now complete when activating the Push/Pull or Follow Me tools and right-clicking on an entity.

Animation:

1. The problem in animation has been solved like in some cases animations exported on the Mac in SU8 were not as smooth as they were in SU7.1.
2. Codec can be selected other than the default.
3. Estimated file size is now correct.

Add Location:

1. The issue for Mac user has been fixed and that is Previously if you launched the Add Location dialog, kept it open, and then closed the SketchUp model, the Add Location dialog would no longer open.
2. One more thing is improved, Previously when navigating to a location and then taking a snapshot, the map portion of the dialog re-sized in a way that was visually jarring.

Performance:

1. In this version, SketchUp 8 is now built using the /Largeaddressaware property on the PC

3D warehouse:

1. Now in SketchUp 8 you would be able to upload the model up-to 10MB.
2. For Mac user only when you searched in the Components browser and then clicked on a results link for the first time, you were sometimes brought to the wrong model in the 3D Warehouse. It’s been fixed.

Toolbar:

1.  Previously, when adding new Ruby toolbars and re-launching SU, existing Ruby toolbars could unexpectedly re-position themselves and restore Toolbar positions would not restore toolbars to their original positions. This issue has been fixed.

Scene:

1. Scene thumbnails can be created only if the scene dialog is open (Mac).
2.  At the time of creating a scene through the View Menu the scene thumbnail can be created.
3.  Geometry will not be disappears when generating scene thumbnails in your model.

Match photo:

1. At the time of selecting scene, there was no confusion as setting shown in the scene panel could differ from the setting of the active scene. Issue has been solved.

Localization:

1.  Most of the translation fixes for localized versions of SketchUp
2.  For Mac user when using the “Save as” context menu for a component, the model will now be saved

Outer Shell:

1. While performing Solid tool operations on co-planar geometry where some of the geometry are on hidden layer and some are not and geometry could be incorrectly removed, the problem has been fixed now.

EPIX:

1. In this new version of SketchUp 8 the five separate fixes for EPix export including correctly exporting similar looking material.

Ruby:

1.  There are few new methods for Ruby developer & more than ten fixes for Ruby issues.

Crashes:

1. Some of top SketchUp crashes have been resolved and Sketchup should be more stable now.

Outliner (Mac only):     

1. Search now is working well after minimizing and restoring the outline.
2. Component and group name should now be visible in Outliner result after doing a keyboard search.
3. Earlier non-selected entities might expand or contract and some time different entity used to select rather than desired, both of them have been fixed.

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Import your Eagle PCB Design into Google SketchUp

Visualization your PCBs in Google SketchUp is easy now. According to the source Hackaday.com has revealed the news that the weak point in eagle can be overcome.

EagleUP is a software package that will import the Eagle CAD PCB designs into Google SketchUp. It certainly build up the gap between them using the open Source image processing Software ImageMagick. SketchUp gives you a beautifully render 3D model of your hardware design. It’s a wonderful way to make sure that your enclosed design will work and you don’t need to wait till the PCBs arrive from the fab house. Though last time a try given to make sure that SketchUp runs under Wine but nothing came of it, this time again you can give a try. The Software will be available for Windows OSX and Linux.      

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Sketchu4architect launched forum: Sketchup Talk.!

Sketchu4architect has launched its first ever forum called “SketchupTalk”. The forum will comprise everything about SketchUp. The forum has been categorize in such a manner so that everyone can get assistance from the discussion board.

The category includes “Discussion Board”, “Showcase your sketchup work”, plugin component”, “Sketchup in different genre”, “Sketchup Developer’s place”,”Add ons of Sketchup”, “Sketchup challenge”, “News andhappening”, ”make a wish for sketchup”, “sketchup tutorial”, “Sketchup tips and tricks” and “Sketchup bugs”. This forum will also helpful for ConstructionEstimation. The forum is doing good with its launch. You can share your opinion too. For registration, please click here         

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Google Model Your Town Competition 2012

After the success of last year Model Your Town Competition, Google team has announced the second Google Model Your Town Competition 2012. The competition is about Geo-modeling which means making photo-textured models of real life buildings that appear in Google Earth. The competition also gives you chance to add your town to 3D map and celebrate it.

The Model your Town Competition is open for everyone from everywhere. You have to form a team, model buildings using Google SketchUp or Building Maker and upload it by the end of Feb 2012.

You can make models as many as you like and the type of buildings you choose to include is completely up to you. Your choice must say about the character or history of your town. The last submission of your entry is 1^st, March 2012 and top five finalists will be announced on 15^th March 2012. The top five 3D models will publicize and open for voting from April 1- May 1, 2012. Depending upon the maximum vote on particular 3D Town model, result will be announced on 15^th May 2012 and of course the USD $25000 for a local/district is a nice incentive too. Not only this, if your town wins then a bunch of Google SketchUp team will visit you at a dinner party and make every possible things to make you feel like the local hero.

If you are new to Geo-modeling, then Learn more about Your world in 3D and get started modeling the town.

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Maxwell Render plugin is free for SketchUp

According to the sources the new version of Maxwell has been released for free for Google SketchUp.

Maxwell Render for Google SketchUp offers you to avail the benefit of advanced rending for completely free. It is a self contained standalone package. It contains its own rendering engine designed for SketchUp. It’s easy to use and no other new interface to learn.

Maxwell for SketchUp has developed for and into integrated SketchUp, so that you can get the maximum quality renders for your scene. It is very easy to install the setup and you will get your SketchUp models a radica transformation. The free version that can yield output resolution to 800 pixels whereas the licensed version which gives you the resolution cap to HD (1960 Pixels) and also offers access to more controllable production rendering mode cost $95.
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Download Maxwell for SketchUp for free

Buy licensed version Maxwell for SketchUp

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Comparison between four SketchUp renderers

In this blog four popular rendering solution for SketchUp will be compared. You need to download & install SketchUp keeping in mind that renderers are accessible from within SketchUp that needs to include an actual plugin. Here we have picked out four renderers, Indigo Renderer, SU Podium, Maxwell and V-ray.

Google offers most common 3D warehouse model is “A house next to water with a boat”. You need to download the model & these plugin, install it and then start doing test renders of the scene.  It’s a simple test and doesn’t include any depth tweaking of materials.

Indigo Renderer

You have to download two components for it to work- IndigoRenderer standalone software and then SketchUp plugin. Once both are installed, you fire up SketchUp & select render from plugin menu.

You make a render of 1374 X 804 pixels resolution and save the image at any location you desire. To start tweaking the result, you can go into the plugin menu and change the setting. You will also find some built in material editor that allows you to modify the SketchUp material. The time you start tweaking, you can gain much better result and you get advance setting depending upon the version you buy. The full software costs €145 or €595.

SU Podium

The next render we used is SU Podium is very old option available for SketchUp. It’s just one plugin and download is even simpler. Once you install it, you can start SketchUp and render right away.

The result of the product is not very impressive and seems to be less option available although it carry its own material. The full version is available for $198.

Maxwell

Maxwell is very famous and standalone render product and now in the recent version it come with plugin. The installation procedure is worse comparing to two older versions. You need to read the “read me” text file to install it. Once it installed go to Plugin menu and select Maxwell Fire to start rendering.

The result seems fairly good from SU Podium. The price of the product is $95.

V-Ray

V-ray is the professional rendering solution and used by many of the SketchUp user around the world. The manufacturer offer trial version for 30 days. Installation is simple but it will slow down SketchUp’s loading time.

With default setting it yields average quality result. V-ray offer most of the options and material features of the four reviewed products allowing very fine modifications. But the price is very high- $800.       

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Free Download SketchUp material

Google SketchUp have plenty of SketchUp materials to offer. Google have been consistently releasing the series of SketchUp and now SketchUp 8 is available.
Material in SketchUp contains SketchUp, SketchUp pro, Google 3D warehouse, SketchUp layout, Google earth, Google Building maker, SketchUp plugin and SketchUp library.
Apart from these Google also provide free facility for students and SketchUp user community.

I believe you all reader must have come across the term SketchUp and other above mentioned terminology too. Let’s have a quick look on that-

Download Google SketchUp 8	Google SketchUp
Download SketchUp Plugin	3D warehouse component
SketchUp layout	SketchUp other library
Google Earth	Google building maker

Most of  the material in SketchUp are available for free but few needs to buy as well. Each SketchUp material have lots to explore and carrying anonymous information.
As of now sharing the information i have on material for SketchUp and will update you always with the new information if our SketchUp4architect team gets any. These materials can be downloaded free from SketchUp4architect.com

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New SketchUp 3D warehouse component: SketchUp Halloween Challenge 2011

Google already added lots of SketchUp warehouse 3D component and now after completion of SketchUp Halloween Challenge 2011, it has uploaded numbers of new 3D component model.

After receiving plenty of entries from SketchUp user in the competition around the world, Google announced few of favorite entries and will be published in their next edition of newsletter and uploaded other popular 3D SketchUp model too on its website. You can find some entries below here:
According to popularity most of the 3D models (.skp format) are available @: sktchup4rchitect.com and If you want to download the 3D components of new model, please visit here.


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SketchUP Video Tutorial for Pro

SketchUp is a software tool introduced by Google that gives life to your 2D or 3D model. Many of us now is well known of the term SketchUp but yet it is unclear about handling the tool to most of the new user. This tool is not only for professional designer, engineer and architects but anybody have interest in the area of creation, designing, building can give a try. Today billions of people are using and give shape to a new world around us.

New users can get assistance by just watching a simple video. Check out few of video from here too mentioned below.

For more video you can explore Official training video.

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Productivity Enhancement Plugin Su animate V4 released

SU Animate is non- photo-realistic Productive Enhancement plugin. It works with SketchUp and able to create an animation. It can create object animation of your SketchUp model to show motion of group and components and has very popular Camera animation in SketchUp model to create fly thrus and walk thrus. It works with SU walk also to create photo-realistic animation. The team has released new version-4 after its successful series of products. The new SU Animate’s new feature enables you to give life to your SketchUp model. Check out the new features below here.

SU Animate V4 new features includes: 

Camera Animation with Key Frames

1. Video - Key frame animations - easy camera animation, walking through Barcelona
2. Video - SU Animate to SU Walk - go from non-photo-realistic to photo-realistic with SU Walk

Object Animations with Key Frames

1. Video - Key frame animations - create object animations, example rotate a door
2. Video - Key frame animations - create layer animation, example construction simulation
3. Video - Key frame animations - Layer Animations - automatically create a frame for each
4. layer for timeline simulations
5. Video - Key frame animations - edit and create camera animation to the construction
6. simulation
7. Video - Key frame animations - combine layer and camera animation in the construction
8. simulation
9. Video - Key frame animations - exploded assembly tutorial - bookcase

• New - Table-driven animations
• New - Update to Path Animations

1. New - Add/ Remove for Object Animation with Paths
2. Polyline Path Tool
3. Arc/Circle Path Tool
4. Spiral Path Tool
5. Animated Objects and Animation Properties
6. Path from an existing curve
7. Nested Path Animations - rotating wheels moving forward
8. Tool bar and context menu

• Shadow (time lapse) Animation
• New - New Tools for SU Animate 4
• The final step - Make Scenes
• SU Animate Path Help - more detail on Path Animation, Nested Animations

The user interface has changed in new version-4 but the way path animations, spiral

animations, time-lapse animations, SU Grid are same.

Summary of user interface and Key Frame Changes changes

User Interface

1. Single Animation dialog box that presents all animations in the model.
2. Animation Player dialog to play animations.
3. Player dialog lets you play, pause, step, loop and control the speed of animations.
4. Player dialog offers the same control when playing Google Sketchup animations, i.e.
5. "scenes".
6. Ability to edit common animation properties (name, frame count, delay count, repeat option)
7. from the dialog.
8. Ability to select the objects for an animation directly rather than only by name.

Key Frame Animations

1. Ability to create key-frame animations for object or camera motion
2. Key-frame animations can handle visibility by layer, allowing construction design
3. simulation.

Additional features

1. Path animation options - to move objects without rotating, Add/ Remove groups easily.
2. When editing polyline control points, the points stay in their original plane by default.
3. Ability to create table-driven animations that access external sources of data.
4. Tool to generate names for groups and components instances and to distribute them onto layers.

More information can be explored about SU Animate by clicking here.
 
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Business Development

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“Make Ideas Real” with Google SketchUp Project

“Google” the name doesn’t need any introduction, though if you think of Google & 3D image modeling isn’t coming in your mind then Google is set to start a new project called “Make Ideas Real”. The project is based on their 3D modeling tools called SketchUp.



People have ideas and using SketchUp they want to give life to their ideas. About two million people uses SketchUp every week resulting into School, Houses, Bridges, Furniture, Robots. These all works represents a larger but untold story about how the SketchUp community is giving an extra edge to the world around us.
Now it’s time to make real those effort with the new “Make Ideas Real” project. This initiative yields an innovative, online showcase that does justice to the impact of SketchUp user. The project is open ended and you can work on any subject matter like architecture, archeology, industrial design, construction, woodworking, personal fabrication, model railroading, mousetrap design etc. Everyone are welcome for this initiative.

SketchUp users need to fill up a simple form to tell their story. One need to send them an image of a SketchUp model with accompanying photograph that reflects your complete project. Here are few example:

After next few month the team will curate the all submission and by 2012 they will launch a special showcase of SketchUp users. Please feel free to share your SketchUp story.

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Busienss Development
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Number of favorite entries of SketchUp Halloween Challenge

SketchUp Halloween challenge has been full of scary & interesting. The participants of the challenge have made their excellent contribution and did some remarkable job. Lots of entries has been received and the results are really impressive. There are not in particular order as of now. For now everyone can check out few of favorite entries from below here.

Mansion RB by tubero44 

Haunted Castle by Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr.  SketchUp and Photoshop	The Old RR Depot by Scottio  SketchUp, IDX Renditioner and Photoshop
Hallowed Haunts by Pat Hannigan  SketchUp and Photoshop	Spooky House by alsomar  SketchUp and Photoshop

Jack-O'-Lantern in Memoriam by Rachel

Only SketchUp 

For more SketchUp Halloween model, please visit:- http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/

The team will announce the top three catogory in next edition of Google SketchUp newsletter. Public voting is still open, please feel free to vote or comment on your favorite SketchUp model.

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Business Development
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